Walk the Kong

In a somewhat unproductive Sunday, I pulled a Walk the Line/King Kong double header with a slight break inbetween to save my legs from unneccessary cramping. I know nobody tunes in to this to blog to read my take on films (I haven’t yet figured out why anyone tunes in at all actually), but although I found much of King Kong to be visually spectacular, the film failed to grab hold of me the way Walk the Line did.

From the reviews of the Johnny Cash biopic, I expected great performances, and great they were, haunting even. In a movie that occasionally runs the risk of being cliché the performances anchor an aching love story that so simply captures the unfathomanable depths with which two people need each other and the stubborness of personality and society that keep them apart. Full disclaimer – I’m a huge Johnny Cash fan, and I think the reality of June and Johnny’s life and death together is one of the few true romances of modern times, more moving than most fictional stories. (Second full disclaimer – I still haven’t seen brokeback mountain).

When I sat down for King Kong, the first hour of character development felt not believable enough to warrant the percentage of screen time. The love story between Jack and Anne seemed frail, not only in comparison to what I had just seen, but what was to come between Anne and Kong, which I found believable and oddly satisfying. Maybe if Peter Jackson had kept the film to purely that – the merging of fantasy and reality – I would have loved the film, rather than just liked it.

In a sidenote - for my one long time reader here is Mickey Kaus' reason on King Kong's opening grosses:

Well, of course King Kong's doing worse than expected. Nobody wants to have sex with a giant ape! I could have told them that. What were they thinking? ... [via Drudge] 2:20 P.M.